Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Bryan Fischer Award Nominee: David Barton

If there’s a chutzpah hall of fame, David Barton must be a first ballot inductee. You might want to turn off your irony meters before I tell you that he’s now complaining about people using quotes from the Founding Fathers that aren’t accurate.

This coming Spring, Thomas Nelson Publishers will release a new book by David Barton: The Jefferson Lies. This book exposes many of the modern lies about Jefferson that have been concocted, promoted, and perpetuated by the Secular and Academic Left.

The need for this book was recently made evident by an atheist group’s California billboard allegedly quoting Jefferson condemning Christianity…

The only problem with this quote is that it doesn’t exist. It has never been found in any Jefferson writing; yet it remains one of the many lies about Jefferson told by the Secular and Academic Left over the past century.

Actually, it’s cited only by a few ignorant people and they are immediately corrected and criticized by the actual secular left — unlike all of the fake quotes that David Barton popularized with the religious right, which continue to show up on a daily basis even in legislation before Congress. I can’t wait to read all the lies in Barton’s book about those alleged lies about Jefferson.

I don’t want a job for life debunking Barton! There are actually other historical subjects I’d really like to write about, particularly a biography of one of my favorite lesser known founding fathers who almost nobody has ever heard of. But, I can’t get to writing what I’d really like to be writing about as long as Barton keeps putting out more of his bullshit. Maybe someday ….

We can joke about, be disgusted at or rebut David Barton, but remember he is adept at dishing out the Big Lie to his niche audience.

We need to find a way to demonstrate his willful twisting of history to his target group. It may so difficult as to be impossible since his audience are devotees of what their elites have named: patriotism and religion, concepts inimical to logic.

Barton must be stopped before his clothes purchases create a paucity of gaudy red, white and blue ‘Mercain flag country shirts.

There are actually other historical subjects I’d really like to write about, particularly a biography of one of my favorite lesser known founding fathers who almost nobody has ever heard of.

I’d love to see a bio of Haym Solomon, one of the most famous financiers of the American Revolution. He also apparently pushed for the clause about no religious test for office in Pennsylvania, a concept that would later be found in the Constitution.